The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize Winners for 2015

AITO is happy to announce the winners of the Dahl-Nygaard Prizes for 2015.
The Senior Prize is awarded to Bjarne Stroustrup for the design, implementation and evolution of the C++ programming language.
The Junior Prize is awarded to Alexander J. Summers for his work on the verification of object-oriented programs and type systems.
The Dahl-Nygaard Prizes for 2015 will be given during ECOOP 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic, in July 2015.

Bjarne Stroustrup
has a Master's (1975) from his native Århus, Denmark and a
Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Cambridge, U.K. Stroustrup
designed and implemented the programming language C++ (originally "C
with Classes") while at Bell Labs. In 1985, it was first
released outside Bell Labs, and the first edition of his book "The
C++ Programming Language" was published. He has lead the strong
evolution of the language ever since, although it has been
standardised by ISO from 1998 on. From 2002 onwards, he has been a
Professor at Texas A&M University. Recently, he is Managing
Director in the technology division of Morgan Stanley in New York and
Visiting Professor at Columbia University. He has published books and
articles and given talks on virtually everything related to C++. The
C++ language has had a significant impact on computing practices and
has pushed object-oriented technology into the mainstream of
computing. It has also influenced the design of newer object-oriented
languages. For more than a decade, it was the most widely used,
industry-accepted programming language supporting object-oriented
programming. C++ does not force a strictly object-oriented
programming style; it also allows other styles. It continues to be
strong especially in systems and applications in which efficiency is
a major concern; efficiency has always been very important in the
design of C++.

Alex Summers obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 from Imperial College London. Since then
he has been a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London and
at ETH Zurich. Alex's research contributions span the fundamentals of
Computer Science (the Curry-Howard isomorphism for classical logic),
the design of programming languages (committed types for object
initialization), models underpinning program reasoning (invariants
for program verification, permission logics, the connection between
implicit dynamic frames and separation logics), new approaches to
reasoning (considerate reasoning, abstract read permissions), and
tool development for reasoning. His work exploits the separation of
concerns and the encapsulation offered by the object-oriented
paradigm. His breadth of interests is reflected in the wide array of
his collaborations. Alex's exceptional achievements, his
uncompromising focus on quality, and his keen interest in practically
useful results make him a role model for young researchers. He is
also an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher.

The Members of the 2015 Dahl-Nygaard Award Committee were:

Markku Sakkinen (chair)

Richard Jones

Gerti Kappel

Awais Rashid

Tobias Wrigstad

The AITO
Dahl-Nygaard Prizes are named for Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen
Nygaard, two pioneers in the area of programming and simulation.
Their foundational work on object-oriented programming, made concrete
in the Simula language, is one of the most important inventions in
software engineering. Their key ideas were expressed already around
1965, but took over 20 years to be absorbed and appreciated by the
broader software community. After that, object-orientation has
profoundly transformed the landscape of software design and
development techniques. It was a great loss to our community that
both Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard passed away in 2002. In
remembrance of their scholarship and enthusiastic encouragement of
young researchers, in 2004 AITO established a prize to be awarded
annually to a senior researcher with outstanding career contributions
and a younger researcher who has demonstrated great potential for
following in the footsteps of these two pioneers.

AITO (Association
Internationale pour les Technologies Objets) is a non-profit
organization dedicated to the advancement of object technology. As of
January 2015, it has 46 members and is registered in Kaiserslautern,
Germany. Current President of AITO is Professor Eric Jul. For further
information, visit www.aito.org.